Biblical Narrative And The Death Of The Rhapsode

Book Summary

Informed by literary theory and Homeric scholarship as well as biblicalstudies, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode sheds new light on theHebrew Bible and, more generally, on the possibilities of narrative form. Robert S.Kawashima compares the narratives of the Hebrew Bible with Homeric and Ugaritic epicin order to account for the "novelty" of biblical prose narrative. Longbefore Herodotus or Homer, Israelite writers practiced an innovative narrative art, which anticipated the modern novelist's craft. Though their work is undeniablylinked to the linguistic tradition of the Ugaritic narrative poems, there aresubstantive differences between the bodies of work. Kawashima views biblicalnarrative as the result of a specifically written verbal art that we shouldcounterpose to the oral-traditional art of epic. Beyond this strictly historicalthesis, the study has theoretical implications for the study of narrative, literature, and oral tradition. Indiana Studies in BiblicalLiterature -- Herbert Marks, General Editor

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